New Lipo Sponsor for FRA Member's - OptiPower

[grant_ploughbot]

Hi All,
I'm pleased to announce that Robo Challenge have managed to secure a new Lithium Polymer battery sponsor for all FRA member's.

OptiPower are a relatively new brand that is owned and run by Andrew Hinton-Lever in the UK. I have known Andrew personally for the last few years and have had the pleasure of being a Sponsored Pilot for his Brands OptiPower and OptiFuel for quite some time now.

The 30% discount will be available very soon once the final bits of paperwork have been exchanged.
Kane will send a confirmation out to all FRA member's with information of how to order. You will need to quote your name and FRA membership number for your order to be processed.

The reason I chose OptiPower for this discount is because I have had amazing products and support from them even since before I was a sponsored pilot. They will warranty any manufacturing defects in the packs with a no quibble exchange ( due to the nature of robot's, damage and miss-use of the packs cannot be covered). OptiPower have a new ULTRApower range being released in the next few days for higher power applications, However for most their standard range will be plenty powerful

Andy is always out and about at RC aircraft/car shows to offer help and support to user's, and I am pleased to say that he will also be at the Robo Challenge Open Day/FRA awards day in December to help with the Lipo talks and answer any other questions or concerns that anyone has with Lithium Technology.

I hope that this is a big help to a number of member's (let's hope they get allowed in heavyweights )

http://www.optipower.co.uk

[calumco]

very nice , did u get my info on flight power i posted on your other thread? And is there any news on anything?

[teamstorm]

The reason I chose OptiPower for this discount is because I have had amazing products and support from them even since before I was a sponsored pilot. They will warranty any manufacturing defects in the packs with a no quibble exchange ( due to the nature of robot's, damage and miss-use of the packs cannot be covered).

Grant, great job on getting the agreement of some sponsorship, two questions do spring to mind....

1) What is different from the statement above to the statement and the one when RoboChallenge reccomended Flightpower - using exactly the same reason, and off the back of the same 'amazing product and support' that you had been experiencing.

2) What is in the 'sponsorship' deal for OptiPower, and if being endorsed by the FRA can someone confirm that the FRA has done some due diligence (call it a second opinion on the reason if you like) to ensure we don't end up in another FlightPower mess ?

Please don't take this as an attack on working to set up something great, just got a little feeling of deja vue here, and got burned the last time and seeking some reassurance

[kane]

Hi Ed,

You can be assured that the FRA and Robo Challenge will be monitoring service closely and I look forward to meeting Andy.

Members will receive full details once everything is finalised.

Thanks

Kane

[PJ-27]

Personally I've had no problem with FlightPower, the Li-Po we use in Bitza is good quality, great price and arrived quickly.
It only seems in recent days that some people have had problems with them and I think from the FRA and Grant's point of view that it was unforeseeable.

Grant's taken the time to find us another (at his own time and expense) with an (almost) as good discount ( ).

[grant_ploughbot]

Ed - There's a couple of Key differences between FlightPower and OptiPower that have been noted above.

FlightPower is a company, run and distributed in China with no UK distributer or warehouse (this was a new thing that wasn't made obvious when they moved).
OptiPower is a brand of a UK based company, with many many top re-seller's in the UK and Europe.
The company behind OptiPower/OptiFuel brand is PMA (Process measurement and Analysis), a multi million ££ chemical company that's based in Huddersfield. This is where they manufacture all of their fuel and where all their lithium packs are tested and distributed.

Because of this, all orders are taken by PMA, which means someone's always there to answer you calls!

Ontop of that, Andrew the owner is very active on the RC circuit (it's his hobby too) and is at almost every major event on hand for help and support. Julian Cox from FlightPower has not been seen at an event for quite some time.

Read up online and you will find the feedback excellent.

With regards to the FRA's second opinion, through out the process I was in discussions with Kane about this, however at the end of the day the decision is best laid down by myself as I have by far the most experience in this field (been using lipo's in robots alone since 2006 UK champs). Sadly FlightPower was an exception where the whole business had moved and things rapidly changed around the same time.
I know Andrew personally after flying for his company for years and he genuinely is someone you can trust.

But at the end of the day it's upto you

[teamstorm]

Great answers Grant ... sounds like a very different supplychain and model to distribution. That was the differentiator that I was looking for - up until then you'd just given the same reasons that were given for Flightpower (at the time) as to why OptiPower were now the ones to use, but it sounds like the way they are set up is very different.

PJ - You have been very lucky and an exception to the rule I think.

Can I just point out that I wasn't in any way taking anything away from Grant going to the effort of setting this up - far from it, I was seeking clarification around what made this different from a supplychain perspective (which was the core of the problems that Flightpower were having). Grant has been very sensible in his approach to handling the failure of Flightpower, and putting your head above the parapet and going for it again is a brave thing to do.

With the roboteering year now drawing to a close, and the LiPo tests in Big Nipper having just about run their course I think we're all looking forward to the outcome, so this is a timley announcement.

Very different model, which should yield very different results - great job Grant !

[bigflipper]

Hi Ed

Our report and recommendations have been submitted to the FRA only this week. Watch this space.

Glyn

[grant_ploughbot]

Hi Guy's,
Thought I would give you a quick update on things. I now have the list of current FRA member's and will be passing that onto OptiPower so we can begin ordering using the 30% off all their lipo range.
Kane or I will be sending an e-mail out to all member's shortly with the list of batteries and how to order etc.

OptiPower have kindly extended their sponsorship to the full range of CellPro charging equiptment and accessories, which includes the Cellpro 10S chargers, and the awesome PowerLab 6 and 8 chargers. There are also Power supplies, charging cables and bundles and also Lipo sacks that can be purchased with at a sponsored rate.
The pricing structure varies for this, so I will be sending the full price list for that with the discount figures at the same time. I think you will agree that they are very good!

I have noticed that alot of people who have contacted me about the purchase of these batteries are not FRA member's yet and weren't for the 2012 season. You NEED to have up to date FRA membership to qualify for these discounts. OptiPower will be updated constantly with the latest member's to ensure that only FRA member's can take advantage of this excellent offer.

[adz600]

Did we ever get an email i dont think i did, will be ordering some lipos very soon look to be the best around. Just require a way of ordering and price lists etc if available ?